cleveland_cardiff energy transitions

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Prometheus, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire...but I

will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad

of heart while they embrace their own destruction.

-- Zeus to Prometheus, Hesiod, Works and Days 55

Energy Transitions: An OverviewCutler J. Cleveland

Dept. of Geography and Environment

Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range FutureBoston University

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Outline

• Long run relation between energy use &

income

• Energy quality

• Changes in energy surplus (net energy)

• Scale and duration of transitions

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Long Term Energy Intensity of GDP

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2

1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

   I   n    d   e   x    (   S   t   a   r   t   D   a   t   e  =

   1 .   0

    )

SpainItaly

UK

Sweden

Czechoslovakia

Norway

US

Sources:

Kander (2002)

Fouquet (2008)

Rubio (2005)

Lindmark (2007)

Kuskova et al. (2008)

Malanima (2006)

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The Concept of Energy Quality 

•

The economic usefulness of a heat unit of fuel or electricity – How much GDP can 1 Joule produce?

• What determines energy quality?• a combination of physical, chemical, engineering, economic, and

environmental variables

• cost, weight, density, safety, amenability to storage, heat content,pollution, conversion efficiency, ease of transport, intermittency,spatial distribution

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Energy Density

Most batteries

Flywheel

Compressed airLiquid N2 

Nuclear fission of U-235:

90,000,000 MJ/kg

1,700,000,000 MJ/l

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Marginal Product of Oil Gas, and

Electricity Relative to Coal in the U.S.

Low High

1.8 3.5

1.4 2.8

4.3 16.4

  GDP 

  Oil 

  GDP 

  Coal 

  GDP 

  Gas

  GDP 

  Coal 

  GDP 

   Electricity

  GDP 

  Coal Source: Robert K. Kaufmann, The relation between marginal product and price in US energy markets : Implications for climate

change policy, Energy Economics, Volume 16, Issue 2, April 1994, Pages 145-158

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100  10

510

1010-1

101

103

105

Photovoltaics 

Wind

Ocean

Heat

Photosynthesis Hydro

Oil Fields

Coal Fields

Thermal Power

Plants

Cities

Steel Mills,

Refineries

Highrises

Supermarkets Industry

Houses

Central Solar

Towers

Tidal

AREA (m2) 

Power Densities for Energy Sources and End Uses Source: Smil (1991)

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Surplus Energy from Domestic Oil & Gas in the U.S.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

  x   1   0   1   5 

   B   t  u

Surplus Energy = (Energy Extraction)  – (Direct + Indirect Energy Inputs to Extraction)

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There is No EKC For Energy

• Much of the EKC work is fraught with statistical and/or methodological flaws[Wagner (2007); Vollenbergh et al. (2009); Stern (2010)]

• Energy use appears to rise with income at a decreasing rate [Richmond and

Kaufmann, (2006); Luzzati and Orsini, (2009); Nguyen-Van (2010)]

Source: Richmond and Kaufmann (2006)

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U.S. Electricity Generation by Source

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

COAL

HYDROPOWER

GAS

OIL

NUCLEAR WOOD

WINDGEO.

SOLAR

Major Transitions Take a Long Time

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What’s Different About the Next Transition? 

• Substitutes are lower quality 

• Scale of transition is large 

• Environmental frontier is closed 

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Network for Energy Transitions

http://www.netransitions.net/ 

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U.S. Energy Shares, 1780-2010

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

Other Gas

Oil

Coal

Water 

Wind

FirewoodMuscle